The included accessories are pretty standard: A quick installation guide, driver CD (not shown), 6-pin to 8-pin PCI-Express power adapter and a single HDMI-to-DVI adapter are included. The accessories provided is enough for most given the variety of outputs present. Do take note that there isn’t a game bundle or software included to show off the card capabilities.

The packaging is not as fancy other brands, but if it makes the price lower (and helps save the earth too) we’re all for it.

The Board

Outputs

The Revolution has a total of 4 outputs: Dual-link DVI, HDMI (supporting audio), DisplayPort and VGA.

The wide variety of outputs is good but we felt that Palit should have put in a second DVI port instead of the VGA port and included a DVI-to-VGA adapter. This would allow for a triple-monitor setup using all DVI ports (using the HDMI-to-DVI adapter).

Currently there is only a handful of DisplayPort monitors and Palit’s decision to include it on the R700 is still a good move. DisplayPort has significant potential, being supported by many big names. Notably, DisplayPort has the advantage of being an open standard unlike HDMI, though the HDCP portion still requires licensing. (Note that using the HDMI-to-DVI adapter on the R700 blocks the DisplayPort port.)

Take note that component output is absent from the R700, so a separately purchased DVI-to-Component adapter is required.

Board Layout & Heatsink

The position of the VPU core is the same as that of the reference card, as can be seen from the location of the mounting backplates. While some components remain in the same place most have been moved around.

The heatsink uses 4 copper heatpipes (2 for each core) to move heat to the fins that are cooled by two 80mm fans. The fans are the main reason the R700 takes up an extra slot. The heatsink is so large that mounting backplates were necessary to prevent the card from warping.

Besides the large main heatsink there are also smaller heatsinks mounted on the power circuitry. A large heatspreader covers much of the reverse side of the card to provide cooling of the GDDR5 chips.

Note that, unlike the reference design, both the 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors are now angled. This design makes it a little easier to plug in the connectors, however this may still pose a problem with a smaller and narrower casing like a HTPC. Honestly, we don’t think we’ll be seeing too many people trying to cram this behemoth into something that small.

CrossfireX

CrossfireX, or Quad Crossfire, is possible with the R700, just like with any other X2 card from DAAMIT AMD/ATI.

For Quad Crossfire, a motherboard with a two-slot spacing between the x16 slots is required. And even then using the R700 still means the loss of use for the two slots underneath. For this reason those looking to do a CrossfireX setup with two of these cards had better make sure they are not going to need those slots afterwards.